The Orchard: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Adele Crockett Robertson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1995

A moving memoir of the Depression, recently discovered by the late author's daughter, recounts a young, single woman's laborious struggle to save her New England apple farm from going under. 25,000 first printing. National ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

After the death of her father in the spring of 1932, Radcliffe graduate Adele Crockett left her city job to save the family apple orchard in Ipswich, Mass. She had to cope with a mountain of debt, aging machinery and the vagaries of weather?all without encouragement from her mother and brothers. Later, she wrote in rich detail about her farming years in the depths of the Depression. Her manuscript was discovered soon after her death by her daughter, Betsy Cramer, who contributes the introduction and epilogue. It is a charming memoir that evokes the despair and hope of that era. We see the doughty Adele and her French-Canadian workers feverishly picking apples in darkness to beat a hurricane; we share her nervousness when she attempts to find a market. An unusually cold winter that froze most of the crop spelled the end of Adele's valiant struggle. Photos not seen by PW. 25,000 first printing.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Robertson, a Radcliffe graduate, left a comfortable life in Boston during the Depression to grow apples in the family orchard near Ipswich, Massachusetts, from 1932 to 1934. This remarkable woman survived near poverty; cold winters; faulty plumbing; frozen pipes; the specter of unsold, spoiled apples; and harassment from the local bank. She describes her experiences learning how to operate and repair a tractor, digging a well, packing and storing apples, and other tasks involved in running a successful orchard. The loyal workers who helped her run the farm and the university purchasing agent who bought her apples and introduced her to new clients helped make her lot bearable. In the epilog, written by her daughter, we learn that although the farm was later sold, Robertson continued to live in the house, married, and became active in the community as a shop steward, local radio reporter, historian, and journalist and did a stint in office as a selectwoman. This absorbing tale is recommended for all collections focusing on the contributions of women or American agriculture.?Irwin Weintraub, Rutgers Univ. Libs., Piscataway, N.J.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 234 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co; 1st edition (October 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805040927
• ISBN-13: 978-0805040920
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,031,594 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If I could give this one Six Stars, I would!, February 5, 2002

By 

Thomas L. Ogren (San Luis Obispo, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Orchard: A Memoir (Paperback)

The Orchard, a Memoir, is a great book. Last week I was on a long flight back to San Luis Obispo from Omaha and I had this book with me, a gift from my mom. I started reading it and totally forgot about the flight, never noticed the movie they were playing. A good number of times tears were just pouring down my face and I'd wipe them away, wondering if the people on the plane around me thought I was a bit crazy.
But I tell you, I'm crazy about this book! Honestly, I read a good deal and this is easily one of the most interesting, deepest, most powerful books I have read in years. Although true, a memoir, it reads just like a fine novel. I was so totally absorbed reading this rare gem of a find, that it was difficult to realize that the author had died some 20 years ago--she, Adele Crockett Robertson, seems so real, so full of life, so gutsy, so immediate.
Briefly, this is the story of a young girl, a smart, educated girl with a good head on her shoulders, who loses her job in the great Depression, and goes back to the family farm to try and save it from the bank. The many people in the book all come to life perfectly and there are surprises aplenty. I am a gardenwriter (author of Allergy-Free Gardening)and have farmed myself, and I appreciate what Adele went through. I would also add that this is no doubt the best picture of life during the Depression I've ever come across.
I plan to review this book every place that I can, because to my mind, this one is so good, so readable, so well worth reading, so enjoyable, so satisfying, that it completely deserves to be a best seller. Do yourself a favor and read this marvelous book!

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Hers was, above all, a working life...", December 13, 2005

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Orchard: A Memoir (Paperback)

In this extraordinary memoir from 1932-1934, Kitty Crockett Robertson describes her life on the North Shore of Massachusetts during the Depression, a time when she, a Harvard graduate, became a hard-working apple farmer to save the family farm in Ipswich. Her physician father had died, and Kitty, wanting to keep the farm from being sold for development, which her Boston-based brothers favored, decided to give up her job working at the Harvard Library to try to make the orchard profitable enough to save the land.

Working almost single-handedly, she spent the next two years doing all the dirty work, learning in the process that "The Depression was that time of leveling when she and her neighbors kept going on the strength they learned from each other." From her earliest days on the farm, she personally pruned trees, cleared land, repaired sprayers and tractors, gathered swarming bees into hives, hired five workers at twice the going rate (because they, too, needed to make ends meet), dealt with an arrogant banker anxious to foreclose, protected her apples at gunpoint when necessary, and then fought the weather, storms, and a December temperature drop to twenty degrees below zero in her efforts to bring the crop to market.

In the process she earned the love of her workers (who had regarded her, at first, as an idle "North Shore millionaire"), gave up everything in her personal life to devote herself completely to her task, worked up to 16 hours a day for two years during the apple and peach seasons, and gained new appreciation for the values she saw every day among her workers, the wholesaler who bought her drops and cider apples, and the purchasing agent of Harvard, who helped her make commercial connections to sell her crop.

Robertson, who became a newspaper and radio columnist in her later years, was a formidable writer who always recognized the values which unite people, regardless of their "class," and this quality pervades her personal memoir. Unfinished, because her life became too busy to finish it after 1934, it was discovered upon her death in 1979 by her daughter, and it is she who moves the story to its conclusion after 1934. Filled with personal detail and wonderful tributes to those who helped her, Robertson is never self-serving, readily admitting her weaknesses while stressing her efforts to succeed. A unique look at one farm and its history during the Depression, The Orchard is an extraordinary record of the times, written by a truly extraordinary woman. n Mary Whipple

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gripping, inspiring read, February 22, 2001

By 

Aspen Leaf (Oregon USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Orchard: A Memoir (Paperback)

I picked this book up during a discouraging, lonely period in my life, and it really helped me put it all in perspective. The beautifully clean, understated writing paints a gripping picture of the enormous challenges Kitty Crockett faced and met during the Depression as she struggled to save her family's apple farm from repossession by the bank. It's a tale of true heroism. It gives a real feeling for the hardships that people faced and for the reserves of the human spirit that people drew on to endure these hardships. Can you imagine having to do grueling physical labor from sunup to sundown without having enough to eat, never being really warm in the winter, being constantly in debt, and yet getting up each day and doing what has to be done? Kitty Crockett is one of the most memorable characters I've ever met in a book.